Bad Date

by Ellery Lloyd

Fay: Hello and welcome to Ride or Die, with me, Fay Roper. Poppy: And me, Poppy Blake, Fay’s personal assistant and best friend forever . . .

Fay: Anyway, as regular Ride or Die fans will know, this is the podcast where two basic besties talk about life, love, and our laughably terrible choices.

I take a moment to appreciate how good I look—I’ve grown stubble, got coloured contact lenses in, and am wearing a pink T-shirt from a brand called Prada, a surprisingly good colour on me. Then—ignoring the blisters on my heels from my new, 10slightly too-tight Veja trainers—I

I’ve always believed in love at first sight, but I’ve never actually experienced it until now. The only way to describe it is a serene certainty, your soul saying: There you are, at last.

Just as, all evening, I have been pretending not to know that it is Fay Roper who is sitting across the table from me.

She has always said that fame is the price she’s prepared to pay for doing what she loves, but her son doesn’t owe the world shit.

A no will always turn into a yes if you only persist—that’s what my mother always said.

They really should teach kids more in school about online safety, make them aware that any old weirdo could be out there, talking to them.

They’re never subtle, these guys. Not very bright either, most of them. Some even use their own names, or at least reuse the same fake name across accounts—podcast reviews, social media, one-star fake vet reviews. Online Mortal Kombat. That’s how I identified Oliver Sharpe.

what better place to dump them than the back garden of the man who had masterminded their murders?